Physicians are active on social media with contact dermatitis content, but they can take more advantage of this opportunity to educate patients, according to a review of posts on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Twitter, and Reddit.
Data on social media use suggest that approximately 65% of U.S. adults regularly use social media, and 40% of individuals use it in making medical decisions, Morgan Nguyen, a medical student at Northwestern University, Chicago, said at the annual meeting of the American Contact Dermatitis Society, held virtually this year.
"Dermatologists' awareness of social media discussions can further their understanding of where patients go for information and what they might encounter," she said. In particular, "contact dermatitis practitioners can tailor their counseling by knowing what their patients are seeing online."
To characterize the social media landscape for content related to allergic contact dermatitis (ACD), Nguyen and colleagues assessed metrics on content and authorship on six different platforms.
For YouTube, the authors reviewed 15 videos related to ACD with views ranging from 24,262 to 232,300. Of these videos, two were produced as medical education, four were produced by patients, and nine were produced by physicians. The content of many videos was poor quality, with an average
